In a press conference on Thursday morning, the military said Pakistan shot down a dozen Indian drones sent on this side of the border since last night, as tensions between the neighbouring countries continue to rise.
According to army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the armed forces neutralised “12 Harop drones” at various locations, including Karachi and Lahore. He also showed a series of pictures showing the debris of the drones.
He said that the process of India sending across these Harop drones was a “serious serious provocation”. “This naked aggression continues, and the armed forces are on a high degree of alert and neutralising them as we speak,” Gen Chaudhry asserted.
Harop drone is a loitering munition system developed by the MBT Missiles Division of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
According to information available on the IAI website, loitering munitions are designed to hover over the battlefield and attack upon the operator’s commands. The Harop is particularly known for its ability to hunt down enemy air defenses and other important targets. It combines the characteristics of a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and a missile, which is an airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight.
The drone can operate both fully autonomously or be manually operated in its human-in-the-loop mode. If a target is not engaged, the drone can return and land itself back at base. Harop, with its folding wings, can be launched from a truck- or ship-mounted canister, or configured for air-launch.
According to TRT Global, India imported military hardware worth $2.9 billion from Israel over the last decade, including radars, surveillance and combat drones, and missiles.
Earlier, in 2016 and 2020, the Harop was extensively used by Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict against Armenia, per information available on the Israeli military and security export database. The attack drone supposedly hit a bus full of soldiers, killing half a dozen of them in the process, and destroying the bus.
In recent years, the drone has become an export success, with India and Azerbaijan purchasing the system.
Header image: Picture of the Harop Long Range Loitering Munition. — Israel Aerospace Industries
